RADIATORS
[ Adam J. Galanski-De León ]

They say what is real is different than The Real. I guess what is real are the fictions we create to escape from THE Real. I got a phone call today from my cousin’s number. Cousin Phil who’s been dead for four years.

Clunk-Chooga-Clank-Shoosh-Shwumm-Clack-Shoof!

The radiators are working overtime tonight in my apartment. I connect their rhythm to the sound of trains. Like the ones Phil used to work on on the Rock Island Metra. I lay in bed, bundled under sheets and covers, staring up at the pressure cracks and water damage in my ceiling hastily painted in off white by my landlord. The kind of ceiling paint that is textured rough with drips because it was applied sloppily; just trying to flip the space for the next sucker tenant who won’t notice the draft or the drip or the bugs before the pen hits paper and a deal is set in stone. Even the outlets are smeared in cheap paint. 

Disassociating, I can almost see him clipping tickets in a uniform suitcoat over white collar and black tie. Cuff links and brass buttons. Royal blue cap crowned on his head. Glasses tipped down over his nose. Hair tapered down the sides, but still he didn’t shave those bushes that grew off his ears. 

CLANK-Shooga-whack-Shoo!

Hot water is pooling around the base of the radiator. I get up and wrap it in a bath towel. Vapor rises up from the iron. In a feverish mist I am surrounded by the hissing of unseen snakes. I never got to say goodbye.

I’m part of the most educated generation in this nation’s history. And we’re all stuck working working-class jobs. They sold education to us like it was a ticket out of here. But all we did was inherit a lifetime of debt. Phil dropped out of Columbia College downtown. He wanted to be an artist. He ended up working on the Metra. Better than most others who ended in the restaurants and bars. But anyway, he once told me, a university isn’t where you learn to be an artist. That’s life…That’s life…

But part of why I bring this up is because at MY restaurant job I wasn’t given the time off to head down to Blue Island for the funeral. I figured I hadn’t kicked it with him in so long. I might as well not fight my boss too hard. I needed the gig.

Phil used to explain a lot of shit to me when we’d be smoking and drinking when I’d visit him at An Seanachai’s down by Vermont Street. Every creature in the world is given a chance. I saw this rabbit today hoppin’ around through the city. It’s alive to be prey. But that’s why its eyes are on either side of its head. That’s why they have sharp ears and are fast on their feet. Rodents can love harder than a hawk. Because they have nothing but a chance. And that sort of shit brings people together. There’s something noble about being prey and still surviving. 

But sometimes I felt that Phil said that sort of shit because he felt like he didn’t have a chance. Dead beat dad and an addict mother. There were parts of his youth where he had to be his own father. And his lack of knowing what it meant to be a father ironically lead him down some of the same mistakes as his biological dad who he didn’t speak to. 

By the time he got sober he had dropped out of college, and by the time he dropped out of college he had become distant and detached from the family. He appeared in random Facebook posts, or pixelated phone photos of early internet memories. 

He jumped onto the third rail of the train tracks and got shocked to death.

Thrown right out of his shoes

CLANK-Swoosh-drip-Gloomb-Pah!

The funny thing was that when they checked his body, in his pant pocket they found he bought himself a ticket to Chicago. It still had yet to be punched.

It’s negative-ten degrees out with the windchill. My kitchen window has cracked in the frost. The world is an ice-box. I’m thawing myself out in this steam. 

I have these Guatemalan Worry Dolls that I keep by my bedside. My momma gave them to me when I was a kid. Little figurines of people made out of colorful cloth, wire, wool, or yarn. I keep them in this little wood box painted with green and yellow designs. I used to whisper all my troubles to them before bed and then place them under my pillow. In the night they would take all of them away. To where, I don’t know. Tonight, I hold them in my palm and analyze their faces. I feel stupid, but I kind of want to talk to them again.

I feel like when Phil had his funeral, I had a chance. I didn’t take it. I whisper that guilt to one of the dolls and place it under my pillow.

CLUNK-chooga-clank-shoosh-DieI’mDead

Huh?

The radiators are raging. Steam slips out of them like phantoms. My towel is soaked and water is leaking on the floor. A centipede is crawling across the ceiling fan. The light bulbs heighten its shadow across the wall to monstrous proportions. I shudder. My stomach is groaning. My head is aching. I am getting sick. Delusional.  Soon I am in a deep comatose sleep.

In my dream I am in the Art Institute downtown. Noone else is there, but the lights are on full blast. Cousin Phil’s paintings are displayed on the wall. Landscapes of the Blue Bridge in Blue Island with the river running under it. Portraits of family, friends, and lovers. Paintings of Metra Trains and railyards. Some romanticizing the rust belt, others emphasizing the bleakness. 

I try to walk towards the paintings but my body feels paralyzed. I feel my limbs attempting to thrash in real life, but nothing. I try to scream but my jaw doesn’t unclench. Everything is so heavy. The air is oppressive. This dream is a shackle. The bright lights are sadistic in their sterile nature. 

My eyes open wide in fear as a figure pushes through the canvas of one of Phil’s self-portraits. It’s him. Phil is there, nude as the day he was born. His body is engulfed in flames. His skin is melting to the bone. It is soon hard to distinguish his facial features. He is breathing heavily. He stumbles, reaching his arm out to me. A trail of ash follows him across the floor like the slime which trails a slug. I can hear the radiators chugging within my dream

CLANK-chooga-bank-swoosh-WACK!

He reaches his burning palm out to me and wraps it around my hand. My skin sears, but in my paralysis I still cannot scream. Before his melting eyes roll down his face, he looks at me and talks in a last push through his exhaustion.

I’m so cold…

CLANK!

I wake up to my breath visibly slipping out of my mouth. My whole apartment is frigid and silent. The radiators have been shut off. 

I don’t know if those Worry Dolls work. Maybe where there was worry, they replaced it with curiosity. 

I layer up in clothes and head to the bathroom, noting the blue tone to my lips as I brush my teeth. I throw on some boots and my parka and head down the creaking staircase of my building out into the frozen streets. The last thing I hear when leaving my apartment is the radiators coming back on. This time they are tame, just chugging slowly, gurgling steam.

Clink..Clink..Clink…grrrrr….

On a tree branch across the street, a red-tailed hawk gnaws on a carcass, tearing clumps of fur off to rip at raw flesh and organs.

I am going to head to the bus stop, and take it to the red line. I’ll take the Red Line to the Metra, and the Metra to Blue Island. I will buy my ticket out of here. They’ll punch it and stick it on my seat. I’ll watch the downtown fade to the south side, fade to the suburbs, past trees and rivers to small urban landscapes. And in Blue Island I’ll do something I haven’t done before. I am going to visit my cousin’s grave.

But before I do that, I walk down this street and pull out my phone. I am going to call him back. If he did call. Through all these dreams and vapors I can’t even remember what is real.

Adam Galanski-De León is the author of the novella, "Intrepid" (Alien Buddha Press), and the story collection, "The Laughter of Hyenas at
Bay" (Raging Opossum Press). He lives in Chicago, IL with his wife, daughter, and four cats. Adam maintains a website at http://www.adamjgalanskideleon.com.